First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The clauses of the amendment are often called the establishment clause, the free exercise clause, the free speech clause, the free press clause, the assembly clause, and the petition clause.

Which government actions are subject to the First Amendment?

The First Amendment, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, originally restricted only what the federal government may do and did not bind the states. Most state constitutions had their own bills of rights, and those generally included provisions similar to those found in the First Amendment. But the state provisions could be enforced only by state courts.

In 1868, however, the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, and it prohibited states from denying people “liberty” without “due process.” Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has gradually interpreted this to apply most of the Bill of Rights to state governments. In particular, from the 1920s to the ’40s the Supreme Court applied all the clauses of the First Amendment to the states. Thus, the First Amendment now covers actions by the federal, state, and local governments. The First Amendment also applies to all branches of government, including legislatures, courts, juries, and executive officials and agencies. This includes public employers, public university systems, and public school systems.

The First Amendment, however, applies only to restrictions imposed by the government, since the First and Fourteenth amendments refer only to government action. As a result, if a private employer fires an employee because of the employee’s speech, there is no First Amendment violation. There is likewise no violation if a private university expels a student for what the student said, if a commercial landlord restricts what bumper stickers are sold on property it owns, or if an Internet service provider refuses to host certain Web sites.

Legislatures sometimes enact laws that protect speakers or religious observers from retaliation by private organizations. For example, Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans religious discrimination even by private employers. Similarly, laws in some states prohibit employers from firing employees for off-duty political activity. But such prohibitions are imposed by legislative choice rather than by the First Amendment.

Freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition

The freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition—discussed here together as “freedom of expression”—broadly protect expression from governmental restrictions. Thus, for instance, the government may not outlaw antiwar speech, speech praising violence, racist speech, procommunist speech, and the like. Nor may the government impose special taxes on speech on certain topics or limit demonstrations that express certain views. Furthermore, the government may not authorize civil lawsuits based on people’s speech, unless the speech falls within a traditionally recognized First Amendment exception. This is why, for example, public figures may not sue for emotional distress inflicted by offensive magazine articles, unless the articles are not just offensive but include statements that fall within the “false statements of fact” exception.

The free expression guarantees are not limited to political speech. They also cover speech about science, religion, morality, and social issues as well as art and even personal gossip.

Freedom of the press confirms that the government may not restrict mass communication. It does not, however, give media businesses any additional constitutional rights beyond what nonprofessional speakers have.

Freedom of petition protects the right to communicate with government officials. This includes lobbying government officials and petitioning the courts by filing lawsuits, unless the court concludes that the lawsuit clearly lacks any legal basis.

Permissible restrictions on expression

Despite the broad freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment, there are some historically rooted exceptions. First, the government may generally restrict the time, place, or manner of speech, if the restrictions are unrelated to what the speech says and leave people with enough alternative ways of expressing their views. Thus, for instance, the government may restrict the use of loudspeakers in residential neighbourhoods at night, limit all demonstrations that block traffic, or ban all picketing of people’s homes.

Second, a few narrow categories of speech are not protected from government restrictions. The main such categories are incitement, false statements of fact, obscenity, childpornography, fighting words, and threats. As the Supreme Court held in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the government may forbid “incitement”—speech “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and “likely to incite or produce such action” (such as a speech to a mob urging it to attack a nearby building). But speech urging action at some unspecified future time may not be forbidden.

Knowing lies—such as defamation (which is called “libel” if written and “slander” if spoken), lying under oath, and fraud—may also be punished. In some instances, even negligent factual errors may lead to lawsuits. This, however, extends only to factual falsehoods; expression of opinion may not be punished even if the opinion is broadly seen as morally wrong.

Certain types of hard-core pornography, labeled obscenity by the law, may also be punished, as the Supreme Court held in Miller v. California (1973). Exactly what constitutes obscenity is not clear, but since the 1980s the definition has been quite narrow. Also, obscenities in the sense of merely vulgar words may not be punished (Cohen v. California [1971]).

Material depicting actual children engaging in sex, or being naked in a sexually suggestive context, is called child pornography and may be punished. Sexually themed material that uses adults who look like children or features hand-drawn or computer-generated pictures of fictional children does not fall within this exception, though some such material might still be punishable as obscenity.

Fighting words—defined as insults of the kind likely to provoke a physical fight—may also be punished, though general commentary on political, religious, or social matters may not be punished, even if some people are so upset by it that they want to attack the speaker. Personalized threats of illegal conduct, such as death threats, may also be punished.

No exception exists for so-called hate speech. Racist threats are unprotected by the First Amendment alongside other threats, and personally addressed racist insults might be punishable alongside other fighting words. But such speech may not be specially punished because it is racist, sexist, antigay, or hostile to some religion.

Speech on government property and in government-run institutions

The preceding sections have dealt with laws that apply even to speakers who are using their own resources on their own property. But the government has considerable—though not unlimited—power to control speech that uses government property.

Government employees, for example, may be fired for saying things that interfere with the employer’s efficiency. Elementary, junior high, and high school students may be disciplined for saying things that risk substantially disrupting the educational process or for using vulgarities at school. If the government gives people money to express the government’s views, it may demand that the money not be used to express things the government does not want to support. Speech on government land or in government buildings usually may be limited, if the government does not discriminate on the basis of the viewpoint of the speech. Additionally, speech by prisoners and by members of the military may be broadly restricted.

Speech on government-owned sidewalks and in parks (often labeled “traditional public forums”) is as protected against government suppression as is speech on the speaker’s own property. The same is true for speech by public-university students, at least when the speech is not part of class discussions or class assignments.

The government has some extra authority to restrict speech broadcast over radio and television. Because the government is considered the owner of the airwaves, it may dictate who broadcasts over the airwaves and, to some extent, what those broadcasters can say. This is why the Supreme Court, in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), upheld a ban on broadcasting vulgar words, though such words are generally constitutionally protected outside the airwaves. It is also why the Supreme Court, in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), upheld the “fairness doctrine,” which at the time required broadcasters to give time to people who wanted to present contrary viewpoints. But this extra government authority extends only to radio and television broadcasting and not to other media, including newspapers, cable television, and the Internet.

Related rights

The freedom of expression also protects certain kinds of conduct that are important for people to express themselves effectively. It protects a person’s freedom to associate with others in groups that express messages, such as advocacy groups or political parties. It also protects those groups’ freedom to exclude people whose presence may interfere with the group’s speech. That was the basis for the Supreme Court’s decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), in which the court held that the Boy Scouts, which opposes homosexuality, may exclude gay scoutmasters. The government may ban many kinds of discrimination—but not when such a ban unduly interferes with expressive groups’ ability to convey their messages.

The freedom of expression likewise protects people’s freedom to spend money to speak. People are thus free to buy advertisements or to print leaflets expressing their views—for instance, “Vote for Candidate X” or “Defeat Proposition Y”—and to pool money with others to express views. But, as the Supreme Court held in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), legislatures may impose dollar limits on direct contributions to political candidates, because those contributions may operate as bribes and because limits on such contributions leave people free to speak independently of the candidates. The freedom of expression also protects people’s right to attend criminal trials, so that people can learn what is happening in order to report it to others. That applies even when the defendant, the prosecutor, and the judge prefer that the trial be closed. But the First Amendment does not ensure access to other government processes or records. Such access is usually provided by statutes, such as the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Finally, the freedom of expression protects symbolic expression, such as wearing armbands, waving flags, and burning flags. Restrictions on such behaviour that are unrelated to its message—for example, fire-control laws banning burning anything in public or laws banning public nudity—may be constitutional. But laws that punish symbolic expression precisely because of its symbolic message are generally unconstitutional. As a result, in Texas v. Johnson (1989), the court struck down a law prohibiting the burning of the U.S. flag.

The First Amendment’s free exercise clause prohibits deliberate religious persecution and discrimination by the government. The government may not, for instance, outlaw a particular religion, refuse to hire someone from a particular religious group, or exclude the clergy from political office. Likewise, the clause prohibits the government from singling out religious practices for punishment on the basis of their religiosity. For instance, the government may not specially ban religious animal sacrifice and yet allow ordinary nonreligious killing of animals.

The clause, however, does not limit generally applicable laws that do not single out religion. General bans on the use of marijuana or peyote, for instance, may be applied even to those who view the use of the drugs as sacramental. Similarly, religious objections do not give people a constitutional right to avoid taxes, discriminate in employment (except in the special case of religious groups discriminating in choosing their clergy), or refuse to testify in court.

Many state and federal statutes do exempt religious objectors. The military draft, for instance, has long exempted pacifists (though not those who have religious objections to some wars but not others). The prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s exempted sacramental wines. The federal ban on peyote and many state bans similarly exempt religious peyote users. But these exceptions exist because legislatures chose to create them—that is, the free exercise clause did not itself protect religious rights in these instances.

From 1963 to 1990 the Supreme Court took the view that the free exercise clause did require some religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. The court acknowledged that many laws had to be applied to everyone, including to religious objectors (e.g., laws against murder or trespassing). But the court held that such religious exemptions could be denied only if denying them was necessary to accomplish a very important government goal. This rule became known as the Sherbert/Yoder test, named for the court’s rulings in Sherbert v. Verner (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), in which the court strongly enforced this religious exemption requirement.

In practice, however, even from 1963 to 1990, religious exemptions were rarely granted. Courts routinely concluded that denying such exemptions was indeed necessary to accomplish various important goals. Finally, in 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court generally rejected the Sherbert/Yoder test, holding that the free exercise clause does not require legislatures to grant religious exemptions.

In response, more than a dozen state legislatures enacted general statutes—often called “Religious Freedom Restoration Acts”—that authorize courts to create religious exemptions from state and local government actions, using the Sherbert/Yoder test. Congress passed a similar statute that applies to federal government actions. Courts in another dozen states have interpreted their state constitutions’ religious freedom provisions as requiring the Sherbert/Yoder test. But, like other religious exemptions, these rules are chosen by legislatures (or state courts) and are therefore not required by the federal free exercise clause.

The establishment clause

The framers of the Constitution were familiar with the English “established church”—that is, an official church that received extensive government support, whose leaders were entitled to seats in Parliament, and whose members had legal rights that members of other denominations lacked. The establishment clause prevented the establishment of a national church. Now that the First Amendment has been applied to the states, it also prevents the establishment of state churches. (Up until the 1830s, Congregationalism was the official state-supported religion of Massachusetts.)

There is enduring controversy, however, about what the ban on the “establishment of religion” means with regard to other, more modest church-state interactions. The Supreme Court has sometimes said that the clause requires a “separation of church and state,” a characterization used by Thomas Jefferson. But this still leaves unclear exactly what “separation” means.

Some legal rules in this area are well-settled and uncontroversial. For example, the government may not pressure people to participate in a religious practice (e.g., prayer), and it may not discriminate between religious groups. The government also may not decide theological questions; for instance, a state law may not provide that when a church splits, the property will go to the faction that most closely follows the church’s traditional theology.

The clause also generally prohibits any special burdens imposed on people who are not religious or special benefits given to religious people. There is an important exception, however: the government may sometimes choose to exempt religious objectors from generally applicable laws without similarly exempting nonreligious objectors. Thus, for instance, a federal law requires that prison inmates’ religious practices (e.g., special religious diets) be accommodated, when such accommodations are consistent with prison security. The Supreme Court has held that this is constitutional, even though the law is limited to religious practices.

The establishment clause does not prohibit voters from enacting laws based on their religious beliefs, if those laws deal with nonreligious subjects. Religious people are as entitled as nonreligious people to enact their moral views into law—for instance, with regard to civil rights, alcohol use, the environment, abortion, or sexual practices. If those laws are struck down, as, for example, many abortion laws have been, this would be under other constitutional principles—such as the right to privacy—that apply regardless of whether the laws are motivated by religious beliefs.

Beyond these relatively uncontroversial principles lie areas where the Supreme Court has long been divided, often by a 5-to-4 margin. The current official rule, set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), holds that government actions violate the establishment clause if they have a primarily religious purpose, have a primary effect either of advancing or of inhibiting religion, or excessively entangle the government in religious matters. This test, however, is both controversial and vague. By itself, it gives little guidance about, for example, what constitutes “excessive entanglement” or which of a law’s many effects should be considered “primary.”

Any clarity in understanding what the establishment clause allows or prohibits comes from the other rules that the Supreme Court has created, sometimes using the Lemon test. First, the government may not communicate in ways that a reasonable observer would see as endorsing religion, such as by putting up stand-alone nativity scenes in celebration of Christmas or posting displays focused on the Ten Commandments. But religious symbols may be placed alongside nonreligious symbols in broader displays, such as in museum exhibitions or displays celebrating the winter holidays generally.

The government may also sometimes engage in religious speech when the practice is deeply historically rooted. This exception for long-standing practices has been applied, for example, to uphold prayers given by government-paid legislative chaplains. Some originally religious speech—such as naming cities "Corpus Christi" or "Providence" or using "In God We Trust" on currency—is likewise seen as constitutionally permissible because it now has nonreligious or historical significance beyond its purely religious meaning.

Second, government programs are unconstitutional if they are intended to promote religion. It is on this basis that the Supreme Court has struck down state restrictions on the teaching of evolution in public schools and state requirements that public schools teach creationism alongside evolution.

Third, the government is limited in providing benefits to religious institutions, including religious schools, even when those benefits come through evenhanded government programs open equally to secular and religious institutions. In the 1970s and ’80s this restriction was interpreted broadly, effectively requiring the government to exclude religious institutions from most such programs.

Since the 1990s the restriction has been narrowed. First, if an evenhanded government program gives funding to individual recipients, those individuals may use the funding at religious institutions as well as at nonreligious ones. A classic example of this in action is the G.I. Bill—passed following World War II—which paid for veterans to go to any college of their choice. By analogy to the G.I. Bill, the Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) upheld school voucher programs that fund parents’ choices to send their children to public, private nonreligious, or private religious schools.

Second, even if the program in question gives funds or benefits directly to the institutions rather than to individuals, religious institutions are able to participate if they ensure that the funds or benefits are not used for religious purposes. The federal government, for instance, may lend computer equipment to a wide range of schools, if the schools do not use the equipment to teach religious topics.